


What It Takes

by Zaffie



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Comfort/Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2018-01-05 09:32:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1092348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaffie/pseuds/Zaffie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somehow, Skye always surprises Ward with her strength. He's going to have to stop underestimating her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aislingyngaio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aislingyngaio/gifts).



> because Aisling nagged me endlessly and threatened to not write me anymore Skyeward. And I love me some Skyeward, so I caved to her demands.

The first time they get into real trouble Skye is stubborn and cocky. Ward doesn’t know why that surprises him so much, but honestly, he’d expected her to break. He watches the man smash a fist into her jaw, sees Skye turn her head and spit out the blood, and waits for her to spill secrets.

     Instead, she looks up at the man. “Could you do the other side too?” she asks. “I hate to be asymmetrical in my bruises.”

     The brute probably doesn’t know what asymmetrical means, but he bares his teeth in a grin that says he is all too happy to help Skye out. After he’s punched her again, he leaves, and Ward is left staring at his rookie with shock that he is too slow to hide.

     “What?” she asks him.

     “Nothing,” he says. “Thinking of a plan.” They’re tied to chairs, facing each other, but too far away to touch. Ward’s hands are duct-taped behind his back and each leg is wrapped to a leg of the chair. Skye is bound identically.

     “The team will come,” Skye tells him with absolute certainty. “They’ll probably be here before you even have a chance to pull one of your bad-ass moves and get us out.”

     Ward sees the trust in her eyes. It’s absolute and scorching and he can’t breathe in the face of that much trust. “Yeah,” he manages to choke out. “We’ll be fine.”

     “Good,” Skye says. She lets her head flop to her shoulder.

     A little while later the guy with the massively broad shoulders returns. He grabs Ward’s hair from behind and yanks his head back, hard.

     “Where is the Hub?” he asks through a ridiculously thick accent. French, it sounds like, although mixed in with goodness knows what else.

     Ward says nothing. The guy pulls his hair harder, but he keeps his face relaxed and doesn’t cry out. This is all child’s play for him. Clearly, the thug understands this, because he moves on to Skye.

     “Don’t touch my hair,” she tells him as he approaches. “Do you know how long it takes for me to look this gorgeous?” She pauses. “Not long. Not long at all. But I still don’t want you to mess it up.” Her façade seems impossible to crack.

     The goon grabs Skye’s throat and she looks tiny beneath the massive, corded muscles of his hand. “Where is the Hub?” he repeats.

     “Honestly? I don’t have a clue. I’m not even a real agent yet, and they don’t like me very much,” Skye tells him through a half-squashed windpipe. The words whistle in her throat.

     “You are lying.” She gets a backhand across the face.

     “Stop hitting my face! Can’t you go for somewhere less noticeable, Muscles? I have to be out in public tomorrow, you realise.”

     “Where tomorrow?” he asks suspiciously.

     “At the ceremony where I get awarded a medal for hauling your ugly ass off to jail.”

     Muscles guffaws, but Skye just sits there, straight-faced and perfectly calm. She shrugs at him.

 

The third time he comes, his questions are all aimed at Ward. “For every one you get wrong, I will hurt her,” he says, pointing at Skye.

     “Big deal.”

     Ward says nothing. He wants to, though. He wants to spill his guts, desperately, if it means that they’ll leave Skye alone. God, this is dangerous, he thinks. He’s never had trouble with feelings like this before and it absolutely terrifies him.

     “Who do you work for?”

     “I thought you already knew, bozo,” Skye scorns. Muscles looks at Ward. Ward doesn’t speak. Abruptly, the man shoves a fist into Skye’s gut. She groans and doubles over. Still, Ward stays quiet.

     “What is your name?”

     “He doesn’t have one. He’s a robot.”

     This time he slams his foot into Skye’s thigh, the heel of his boot biting into her flesh through her jeans. She bites her lip so hard it bleeds and Ward sees the flash of red on her mouth. He says nothing.

     “What does your team know about Centipede?”

     “Those things are gross, man,” Skye quips immediately. “They have, like, too many legs. It’s not normal for a thing to be so leggy, y’know?”

     Muscles produces a knife. He leers at Ward. “Last chance, little man.” His accent mangles the words, so ‘little’ becomes ‘leetle’. It would be funny if it wasn’t so disturbing.

     Ward sighs heavily, forcing a look of boredom onto his face, as though this is getting old. It’s not getting old. Inside, he’s an absolute mess. God, just the thought of that knife touching Skye’s pristine, olive skin… the tracks of red, the white scars that will follow. Ward wants to throw up.

     The broad-shouldered man cuts through the duct tape binding Skye’s feet as though it is butter. He hauls her to her feet, hands still taped behind her. “Maybe it would be better if we took this elsewhere, yes? Some privacy.” He shoves Skye and she stumbles forward.

     “You’re doing good, robot,” she says as she walks past him. “Don’t stop now.”

     She gets an extra harsh shove between her shoulder blades for that. “You will hear her scream,” Muscles tells Ward. “Maybe that will change your mind.”

     Except she doesn’t scream. Not once. Ward has no idea what they do to her in there, but he barely hears a sound. Once, a grunt. Twice, a strangled, cut-off whimper. But she never screams. They’re polar opposites in behaviour and professionalism, even more so in looks, but he finds himself comparing Skye to Natasha Romanov. No one’s ever heard her scream either.

 

The team arrives, like Skye believed they would. They rush in and the Cavalry takes the place apart. Fitz is the one who unties Ward, struggling with the tape. “Where’s Skye?” Simmons asks, hovering anxiously.

     “Next room,” Ward grunts. His voice aches from so much deliberate silence. “Go get her.” His hands are free and he reaches down to pull the last of the tape off his legs himself. Fitzsimmons get the message. They go after Skye.

     Ward sees them freeze in the doorway and he doesn’t know how he forces himself to his feet but he does and he runs towards them. Simmons gives Fitz a look, one of those telepathic we speak without words looks, and Fitz stops him before he reaches the door.

     “You don’t want to go in there,” he says, unusually solemn for once. Behind him, Simmons heads through the doorway, cautious and alone.

     “Let me see her, damn it!” Ward shouts. “Move, Fitz, I’m her SO, for god’s sake…”

     “Fitz,” Simmons calls from within. “Give me your coat.”

     He’s wearing one of his long ones today, something beige that goes down to his knees. He takes it off and chucks it through the doorway without a second thought, eyes still fixed on Ward’s.

     “We’re coming out,” Simmons says. “Give us…” her voice cracks, “just give us a bit of space, okay?”

     Fitz steps back. Ward does too, although he doesn’t want to. He stares at the doorway. He sees Skye. He sees it all.

     She’s wearing Fitz’s coat and it doesn’t look like much else. Her legs are covered in cuts, her face is black-and-blue, there’s a bite mark on her collarbone. Ward wants to know where her clothes are. Tell me they didn’t. Apparantly he says it out loud, because Skye is looking at him. Tell me they didn’t.

     “It’s fine,” she says, her lips quirking up into a tired smile. “They didn’t violate my honour, robot. If you were worried about my virginity, though, I regret to inform you that it’s long gone.”

     That gets a quiet chuckle from both Fitz and Simmons, and Ward moves closer to his rookie, only slightly comforted. She puts one of her arms around his waist (the other is around Simmons’ shoulders) and the coat moves apart a little bit at the front. She’s wearing a purple bra, but that’s all he sees, because he forces his eyes away.

     “You’re missing a button,” Simmons says, and she and Skye look at each other and smile with some shared memory.

     “I’ll fix it when we’re on the Bus,” the younger girl sighs. “I don’t know if my fingers work right now.”

     She drips blood on the floor as they limp through the compound, but she walks the whole way on her own two feet, and the support she gets from Ward and Simmons is minimal, if any. Fitz trails behind, talking nervously. Usually, Ward would yell at him to shut up, but the sound seems to soothe Skye. She loves talking, Ward thinks, and internally, he snickers. Maybe they’ll be okay.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just in case this doesn't match anyone's idea of 'official PTSD', I thought I'd say that PTSD is a very unique condition that reacts differently in everyone - for example, I once met a woman who had PTSD, and when she got 'attacks' she would become paralysed and speak only in French. Yeah. So that was weird.

It’s not over, of course. Not by a long shot.

     At first, Ward doesn’t notice, which makes him feel like an absolute jerk later. It’s only when he’s talking to Fitzsimmons in the lab and Simmons yawns in the middle of an enthusiastic sentence that he sees the dark circles under her eyes.

     “You haven’t been sleeping,” he states. It’s not a question, but he waits for her to confirm it anyway.

     She shakes her head, still yawning, and then lowers her hand from her mouth. Fitz gives her a sympathetic smile.

     “Why not?” Ward asks, more concerned than he’s willing to admit.

     “Skye,” Simmons sighs. She tries to force a smile, quickly, and adds; “I don’t mind, though.”

     _What about Skye?_ The words are on the tip of Ward’s tongue, but he sees the looks Fitzsimmons are both giving him and he realises they expect him to know. It’s like a punch to the gut when he thinks that maybe he hasn’t been as aware of his rookie in recent weeks. He should have been paying closer attention.

     “I’ll talk to her,” Ward says, and it seems to be the right response.

 

He tries to bring up the subject of sleep in his next training session with Skye, but she just laughs it off and throws a few more punches at the bag.

 

It’s two nights later when Ward hears the knock on his bunk. His alarm clock flashes 2:47 AM at him in bright red letters, and he frowns and slides the door open. Simmons is standing outside, her hand still raised to knock. She looks dead on her feet.

     “What’s wrong?” he asks urgently, because obviously something is wrong if she’s here at this time.

     She looks up at him. Her eyes are red-rimmed. “It’s your turn with Skye,” she explains, and then something about the look on his face must set her on edge, because she withdraws instantly. “I mean… I thought you said you wanted to help? It’s fine, though, Fitz and I have been taking turns with her, and we can probably keep going, I mean, it’s okay-”

     “I want to help,” Ward interrupts, because if he let her keep babbling when she was this tired she could go on all night. “I’m happy to help.”

     “Oh,” Simmons says happily, her tone flooded with relief. “Thank you, Ward.”

     Her bunk is between his and Skye’s, so she murmurs a goodnight as she slips inside and then Ward is left alone, standing between the women’s bunks. He takes a breath to fortify himself and opens Skye’s door.

     It is right at that second that the feeling of ‘you’re a jerk’ really hits him. Skye is tossing and turning in the bed, the sheets bunched up around her waist, her fists clenched desperately. She’s sweating and there are salty tear tracks on her face. She whimpers a bit in her sleep, and Ward thinks that this must have been what woke Simmons. He kneels down beside her bed and hesitates, his hand hovering just above her bare shoulder. For a minute or two, he can’t decide what to do.

     Skye gives a pitiful little moan, and another tear slips down her cheek. The misery of the moment makes Ward’s decision for him, and he holds Skye’s shoulder and shakes her, hard.

     “Wake up,” he hisses. “It’s okay, Skye, it’s just a nightmare. Wake up, you’re dreaming, it’s only a dream.”

     She’s a light sleeper, so it doesn’t take her long to open her eyes with a start. “Ward,” she stammers, and he nods.

     “I’m right here.” He pulls his hand away from her.

     “No you’re not,” Skye says, crying in earnest now. “I know that you’re here really but I’m _not_ here, I’m there, I can see it and smell it and _feel_ it.”

     “You’re in your bunk, on the plane,” he tells her.

     “ _Help_ me, Ward. _Please_ ,” she whispers. “I don’t want to go back there, don’t make me go back.” Her body is shaking.

     “You don’t have to go anywhere,” Ward promises.

     Skye reaches out, then, and grabs his shoulders. Her grip is tight, almost too tight. Slowly, her dark eyes focus on his face. Her hands run down his biceps and over his forearms, stopping at his wrists, where she clutches. Her fingernails dig into his skin. “Ward?” she asks, and it’s like she’s seeing him for the first time that night.

     “Hey,” he says, equally quietly.

     “Sorry,” she manages on a breathy little stutter-sigh. She slumps forward, exhausted, and presses her face into Ward’s neck. “Sometimes it’s like I’m still in that room, even after I wake up. I can still feel them hurting me. I have to, you know, touch stuff to ground myself.”

     That’s why she’s holding his wrists so hard. She’s anchoring herself, Ward understands, to this reality, this time and place.

     “It’s okay,” he tells her. “Most agents have had PTSD at one time or another. Plenty still do.”

     “PTSD?”

     “You know, post-traumatic-stress-disorder. It’s what soldiers often get, but it’s not confined to war. Just… trauma.”

     “Oh.” She pauses, and he can feel her eyelids brushing his skin every time she blinks. It’s oddly intimate. “Can you fix it?”

     “I can try,” he promises, and it’s as honest as he can be. PTSD isn’t something that can just be fixed, but he won’t say that to her now. The tough conversations can wait for the morning, when there’s sunshine and light and Skye is his bright, bubbly rookie again.

     “Will you wait with me?” she asks, and her voice is already resigned to failure. “Just for a little while.”

     “Yes,” he says, and she pulls back. Ward sees the surprise in her eyes. She honestly expected him to refuse, and that just makes the damned guilt trip he seems to be on get even stronger. What has he been doing wrong?

     Everything, apparently. Skye settles down, head on the pillow, eyes fixed on him. Ward sits beside the bed, leaning back against the table, his arms resting on his knees. Skye keeps hold of one of his wrists.

     They fall asleep like that, and when Ward wakes up in the morning with a crick in his neck that takes three hot showers to go away, he still thinks it’s worth it. Because when he woke up, Skye was smiling. And that, to him, is priceless.


	3. Chapter 3

“Tuck your chin into your chest, raise your shoulders,” Ward instructs. “Ready?” He’s teaching Skye how to fall. There’s irony in that somewhere, or a metaphor, something like that. She’s actually enjoying it, because of course she’d be the kind of girl who loves tumbling.

     “Ready,” Skye grins, her face lighting up. Ward braces his back against the wall and she climbs onto his thighs. He grips her hips lightly to balance her.

     “Three, two, one,” he counts, and then he surges upwards and lets go of Skye as she flings herself forward. She hurtles into the air and then drops towards the hard, unforgiving floor of the cargo bay – which they’ve covered with mats, because they’re not idiots.

     Skye lands on her shoulder the way he’s taught her to, but instead of rolling, she ends up flat on her back. She opens her eyes and giggles up at Ward when he stands over her with his hands on his hips.

     “Oops,” she says.

     “Try again,” he insists, and feels a flash of that old, irritated feeling he used to get when she’d never take training seriously. Now, though, it’s quickly quashed by the pleasure he gets from seeing her happy. It worries him that her happiness can make such a difference to his life. Why should he care what she feels? Well, obviously he cares about her feelings… he’s _not_ a robot, no matter what she says. But why is Skye different from everyone else on the bus? He cares if Fitz is sad. He doesn’t feel the sadness like a punch to the sternum. Likewise, when Simmons is happy it doesn’t light Ward up inside. Why Skye?

     “Um, earth to Ward,” she says suddenly, waving her hand in front of her face. “We’re trying again, remember? It’s a two-man job.”

     Did he seriously just do that? Zone out and have deep and meaningful personal thoughts in the middle of a training session? And he accuses Skye of being unprofessional. Yikes. “You’re not a man,” he banters automatically, although he’s still distracted.

     “And you’re not getting ready,” she retorts. Skye steps forward, into his personal space, and puts her hands on her shoulders to push him back. Her eyes are dark and playful. Ward tries to see any sign of trauma in there; he can’t. She’s got to be an amazing actor, because there can’t be this Skye and also the one who cries in his arms at night. It’s just not possible.

     “Sorry,” he says, and braces his back against the wall again. Skye steps onto his thighs, her bare feet gripping at the denim of his jeans. “Okay, so remember-”

     “Tuck my chin, raise my shoulders,” she recites. “But why didn’t I go all the way over?”

     “You’ve got to lean into the fall,” he explains. “Your instinct – everyone’s instinct – is to move away, to recoil from the ground. It’s all about training your body into doing the opposite, so that you throw yourself into the fall and come out standing up.”

     “Okay.” She nods seriously, and he thinks she might have actually absorbed most of that. She listens to him more now than she did at the beginning. At some point along the way, she committed, without him noticing exactly when.

     Ward counts down again, and then he launches her once more. It’s probably their fifth or sixth try, so he’s waiting for any signs of tiredness in his legs. If he collapses with her on top of him, it’s going to be awkward in so many ways.

     This time, she curls her body into an uneven somersault. It’s better than the last one, but she still doesn’t make it all the way over – she doesn’t have enough momentum. Instead, she gets halfway to her feet and then tips over again, winding up lying on her back with her legs hugged to her chest.

     “It was better,” Ward tells her, and she practically beams at the praise.

     “Can we try again? I feel like I’ve nearly got it.”

     He wants to say no, because it’s getting late and they still need to shower and eat and he doesn’t know how much sleep he’ll get tonight if Skye has one of her nightmares. There’s a whole list of reasons why he should say no. Instead, he takes one look at her glowing face and puppy-dog eyes and says yes. They get back into position for the final throw.

     This time, Skye wrenches her shoulder. He knows before it happens, and has an awful moment where he can practically see the future but do nothing to stop it. She rolls all the way in her somersault this time and crouches on the mat, then looks over to him.

     “That one was good, right?”

     “Is your shoulder okay?” he says quickly. “It was too high, you must have pulled it on the way down.”

     She frowns like she’s only just noticed it, and moves her hand up to rub at where the top of her shoulder meets her neck. “I think it was just a twinge. I’m fine.”

     “Rookie,” he taunts, but there’s affection in the word.

     “Blisteringly attractive Agent-Face,” she returns. He doesn’t really know what it means. A compliment, maybe? He’ll just take this one as a compliment.

     “Thanks.”

     They head up the stairs to dinner.

 

Skye hogs the shower first, naturally, making up a range of excuses like: “I’m a girl” and “I have more hair to wash” but ends up winning with “I’m already in here and I’m taking my top off so you better not barge through that door”. There is nothing Ward can say to that. He has dinner with sweat patches staining his shirt while Skye is clean and fresh and chatty.

     Fitz catches up with Ward outside the bathroom door when he finally goes for his shower. The Scottish man is panicky and talking _way_ too fast to be reasonable.

     “Is it my turn tonight? Only I may have promised Simmons I’d recalibrate the drones and it might keep me up late and I just don’t know if I can be tired all through tomorrow because I’m doing important stuff so…”

     “Relax.” Jumping into a conversation with Fitz (or Simmons) is something like picking the right moment to jump into a skipping rope. You have to time it perfectly. “It’s my turn tonight, Fitz, and even if it wasn’t, you know I’m always happy to take extra.”

     Sometimes, it makes Ward feel guilty to have this roster around Skye without her express permission. She needs them, though, and they need to sleep. This is really the best arrangement, which is confirmed for him when Fitz grins and slaps his shoulder (Ward really needs to stop jumping when he does that) and toddles off somewhere to do something sciencey.

     There are after-dinner drinks, which Fitz begs off because of his thing, and then Ward escorts Skye to her bunk. There’s only Simmons between his bunk and hers, but Ward is a gentleman. Or, he likes to have a reason to tell his Gramsy that he’s a gentleman. _I walked a girl home_ is a pretty good one.

     “I’m here if you need me,” he tells her before she shuts her door. It’s been ten days, now, since he stayed with her that first night, and he’s said it every night since.

     “I know,” she replies, another habit, and then she retreats softly inside her bunk. He’ll hover outside for a little while because he’s overprotective or a stalker or whatever, and then he’ll go and grab a few hours of sleep.

     If Skye needs him, she’ll come and find him. Either that, or Ward will hear her cry and he’ll go to her. It doesn’t matter which right now, so long as they’re together.

     In some deep, secret, caveman part of himself, Ward likes to feel needed.


	4. Chapter 4

“Do you think I’m pretty?” Skye asks as she steps through the door of his bunk. There’s no warning, and Ward has no idea where this question is coming from. It doesn’t help that he’s just woken up and still feels sluggish and stupid.

     “Uh, yeah?”

     “You don’t sound convinced,” she notes, and then she sinks down onto his bed with a heavy sigh. “Miles never told me I was pretty.”

     Ward doesn’t like Miles. “I don’t like Miles,” he says, because apparently his brain is hotwired to his mouth when he’s still half-asleep.

     “I know,” Skye agrees. “You’ve mentioned. Well, I mean, your _words_ haven’t mentioned, but your _face_ sort of said something… without words, obviously, because it’s a face and faces can’t talk – oh, but faces have mouths, so-” Ward reaches up and puts a hand over her mouth. She sighs, and then she licks his palm and he jerks away in shock. Skye grins. “I was starting to sound like Fitzsimmons, huh? Sorry for babbling.”

     “You licked me!”

     “You’re all sweaty,” she says, wrinkling up her nose. “Yuck.”

     Ward rolls over onto his side and props himself up on one elbow. “Skye, why are you in here?”

     She shrugs. “Couldn’t sleep, I guess.” Her hair spills over her shoulders, tangled and dark. She looks small and fragile in the dim light.

     “Stay with me, then,” Ward offers, because he knows it’s what she wants.

     “Good.” Skye elbows him to make him move over, and then she slides beneath the covers and into bed with him. Ward sucks in a breath. Maybe he’s just an idiot with no self-control, but having Skye this close is doing weird things to his brain. She’s soft and warm and really not wearing a lot of clothes, now that he thinks about it.

     “Did you dream?” he asks. His clock says that it’s 1:29 AM. Skye’s probably had at least some sleep by now.

     “Yeah.” She takes a deep breath after she says it, and her chest brushes his. Ward focuses his whole being on ignoring that touch.

     “Want to talk about it?”

     “Maybe,” she says, and then she rolls over and snuggles into him, her head on his shoulder and hand on his chest. He’s not wearing a shirt. Her fingers trace patterns on his skin. After a few minutes, he realises that she’s making letters, writing words over and over again.

     “What are you doing?” he questions, reaching his hand up to cover hers. Her fingers still.

     “Making you a poem,” she tells him.

     “What does it say?”

     “You’ll have to read it yourself.” She pauses, and her fingers curl around his hand. He wraps an arm over her shoulders and around her waist in response. “Ward?”

     “Mmm?” Ward thinks he might be dropping back off to sleep.

     “Did I do something wrong?”

     Now he’s awake. “What? When?”

     “At the… place? You know, the interrogation?”

     _Oh._ He pulls her closer and her hair tickles his nose. He thinks about turning his head and pressing a kiss into Skye’s hair, but he doesn’t. “No.” She’s not convinced. He can tell, because her hand is all tense. “I swear, Skye, you did everything right. I was… amazed at how brave you were.”

     “Not like you,” she mumbles. “Or May.”

     “Braver than me,” he assures her. “I might have been able to stay silent, but talking back to the guy like you did? That takes real courage. It might not have seemed like it, but you really threw him off his game. No professional interrogator is used to someone so strong.”

     “Yeah?” she asks, and now he can hear a smile in her voice.

     “Yeah. Absolutely.”

     Skye sighs in contentment and her whole body relaxes, sinking down towards him. “You know that guy? The beefcake one? Muscles?”

     “What about him?” Ward’s fingers slip up under Skye’s tank top, touching the silky skin of her waist. He freezes, but she doesn’t seem to notice.

     “Did May kill him?”

     Ward’s brain is screaming at him that he’s _touching Skye in his bed_ and he’s trying to ignore all kinds of inappropriate thoughts and also the nagging feeling that she’s way too good for him, so he answers on autopilot. “Yeah.” Oh. Oops. Should he have told her that?

     “Good,” Skye says with relish. It’s so unlike her that Ward is momentarily confused. What were they talking about again? “I hope he suffered.”

     “Skye,” Ward begins, carefully and slowly, because he hasn’t talked with her about this since _that day_ , “was he the one who took your clothes?”

     “Probably.” She shrugs, and continues, “I don’t know, Ward. It doesn’t really matter. I wasn’t _raped_ , okay? It’s fine. I’m better off than a lot of women.”

     _You’re worse off than plenty more,_ Ward thinks, but he doesn’t say it. Sometimes he wonders if Skye uses her empathy for others as a way to shield herself. (Good pun, he tells himself. Remember that one.) It’s almost as though she builds brick walls around her emotions and tries to forget that they exist; she’s so worried that she might start pitying herself.

     “We should sleep,” he instructs eventually. The clock now says 1:57 AM and they have training in less than four hours.

     “Good idea,” Skye agrees, and then she raises her head, suddenly anxious. Her hair falls on Ward’s chest like a curtain. “Can I stay here?”

     “Always!” he insists, like he’s surprised she even had to ask. “Seriously, Skye. My bunk is your bunk, okay?”

     “What’s mine is yours,” she recites, and then adds, “Does that mean we’re married, robot?”

     “Your lack of sleep is making you delusional,” he tells her. If the corners of his mouth quirk up into a smile, so what? It’s too dark in here for her to see... probably. “Close your eyes.”

     “Yes boss.” She puts her head back on his chest and, gradually, her breathing evens out. In the faint red light from the alarm clock, Ward looks at her face, absorbing every inch of it. The slight curl of her dark fringe where it falls over her forehead, the shadows of her eyelashes against her cheekbones, the slack bow of her mouth; he can’t seem to stop staring at her. For the past few weeks now a feeling has been creeping up on Ward. Here, in the dark, with exhaustion fogging his brain, he can’t seem to deny it anymore.

     “Skye?” he says aloud. “I think I’m in love with you.”

     She doesn’t answer, but she does drool on his shoulder a little bit in her sleep, so maybe that means that she’s okay with his feelings and she reciprocates. Or maybe Ward is projecting. Honestly, he should really talk to Coulson again. Did he actually _mock_ a women’s psychology course? Damn, he wishes he had one of those textbooks now.


	5. Chapter 5

When Ward wakes up, there’s a massive bruise stretching across Skye’s shoulder. He knew she’d done _something_ to it yesterday during training, and now he’s cross, because if she’d said that it hurt yesterday then he could have given her anti-inflammatories or ice or something.

     “Skye,” he says, and she jerks awake. Now he feels bad. Damn. “Sorry.”

     “S’okay,” she slurs. “Whassamatter, Ward?”

     Is it bad that when Skye says his surname like that it feels far more intimate than _Grant_ ever could? “Nothing, go back to sleep. I shouldn’t have woken you.” If Skye knew she had this power over him, she could probably guilt him into doing anything she wanted. Hm. He should keep it quiet.

     Skye blinks rapidly and then struggles to focus her eyes on him. “If I sleep with you every night, will you feel bad about waking me up for training and let me sleep in?” Okay, so she’s got him figured out.

     “No,” he retorts, and ignores the _sleep with you_ part of her sentence. Huh. He wishes.

     “Liar.” Skye sets her chin on his chest. It digs in; she has a pointy little chin, but he doesn’t really mind. “Hey Ward?”

     “Yeah?”

     “What did I tell you last night?” This makes Ward’s eyes narrow. Is there something that she hasn’t told him? Something that she should be telling him? His brain skims through every possible motive behind her asking that question before she speaks again. “Only, sometimes in the middle of the night I say weird stuff. I didn’t do anything like… profess my love for horses and their manly, shapely legs, right?”

     “Is that an example of a weird moment from the past?” He’s relieved and also amused. The combination makes him buzz with adrenaline.

     “Um, no,” Skye snorts, but Ward doesn’t believe her. “Why would I say that? That would just be… pfft.”

     “I’m sure the team can overlook your horse fetish,” Ward teases. “If you tell Coulson now, anyway.”

     “I don’t have an anything fetish, and I refuse to talk to Coulson about horses! Shut up.”

     Ward wants to kiss her. He suddenly wants it more than anything he can ever remember wanting in his life, and this feeling has seriously come out of nowhere. _Ambush!_ He struggles to recapture the thread of the conversation, anything to avoid the embarrassing confessions that want to emerge from his lips. “Say something.”

     “What? Something.” Skye is confused. He wants to kiss her even more when she’s confused. Ugh, is he hormonal? This is ridiculous. Ward is an adult. He can control himself.

     “I think you’re pretty.” Crap. So much for self-control.

     “Excuse me, robot?”

     _Think fast_ , he tells himself, and then he actually remembers something helpful. “Last night. That was what you talked about. You asked me if I thought you were pretty.”

     “Okay,” Skye says, and then she flashes him a mischevious grin. “That was a good compliment. You’re getting better at this whole _human and emotions_ lark, I think.”

     “I hope so,” he sighs. “I’ve been practicing.” He moves his eyes away from her face, and her _lips_ , in an effort to avoid temptation. His gaze falls on her shoulder instead, and he sees that bruise again. Oh, yeah, that was why he woke her up. “How’s your shoulder? You should have told me it hurt.”

     Skye twists to try and look at her own shoulder, and her tongue pokes out between her teeth as she concentrates. “It’s just a bruise.”

     “It’s a massive bruise,” he corrects, “and it will make your training much harder today.”

     “Do I have to train today? Isn’t it Sunday? The glorious day of rest?”

     “Actually,” Ward tells her, “it’s been Thursday for the past four days. We keep crossing time zones.”

     “Just cruising around, waiting for a mission,” Skye says. “I like living on a plane. It’s sort of relaxing, in a weird, totally unexpected way. Can we do strategy training today?”

     Her brain skips through topics way too fast. “You just want to play a board game.”

     “Well _duh,_ ” the woman mutters. “Don’t you?”

     Ward always wants to play board games, but he can’t say that to her, because then they’ll never get any physical training done ever again. “Fine, but only because I don’t want you to hurt your shoulder more. Not after…” he halts himself, but the damage has already been done.

     “Not after what? After I got beaten up? Damn it, Ward, I don’t need kid gloves!” She sits up in bed and stares at him. Her hair floats around her face, which is alight with righteous anger. “I’ve told you all that you don’t have to make allowances for me, okay? It’s been three weeks! I’m fine.”

     “ _Nearly_ three weeks. There’s no way you’re fine, Skye. Your body hasn’t healed yet, and-” he cuts himself off again. Uh-uh. Nope. He’s not going to say _your mind hasn’t healed_ because then she really will kill him and she’ll never marry him and have his babies… oh. Is that where his imagination is going with this? How very childish of him. Just because he thinks he loves her (knows he loves her, his brain corrects) doesn’t mean that this will become anything more. He’s not ten. He understands how life works.

     “My body hasn’t healed, Ward? Really?” Skye pushes the blankets off her and gets to her knees. She’s wearing a tank top and boxer shorts which – hey! Those are Ward’s shorts! He recognises the fireworks on them. Someone, he thinks it was an ex-girlfriend, gave them to him as a Christmas gift.

     “Those are mine,” he accuses, reaching out and running his fingers over the silky fabric.

     “They are,” Skye agrees, momentarily distracted. “I stole them because of the fireworks. I just loved the idea of being able to say _there’s fireworks in my pants_ or maybe _there’s a party in my pants_ and it being true.”

     “Can I have them back?” He’s not sure if he really wants them.

     “No.” Clearly it doesn’t matter what he wants, anyway. “Now pay attention.” And Skye grabs the hem of her tank top at her waist and pulls it up and over her head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ha ha, sorry about that! I left you with a bit of a cliffhanger ;) Don't worry, the next chapter will pick up RIGHT where this one left off. Don't expect things to get graphic, though, because I don't write smut. I am incapable of writing smut. Smut will not appear.


	6. Chapter 6

His body’s instinctive reaction is to throw his hands up to cover his eyes, because _Skye is naked_. Halfway through the motion, Ward’s brain realises that this is stupid, and so he freezes. His hands end up hovering in the air and he probably looks like a real idiot, but it’s too late to do anything about that now. Ward struggles to keep his gaze fixed on Skye’s face, but his eyes keep flicking down without his permission. “Skye, you’re naked.”

     “I know. You don’t expect me to wear a bra to bed, do you? Now look,” Skye says accusingly, fluttering her fingers across her bare ribcage. Uh, no. Ward is not going to look… again.

     “Put your shirt back on,” he says through gritted teeth.

     “Oh, my god, Ward, they’re just _boobs_ ,” she snorts. She wraps her left arm across both breasts, flattening them to her chest, and then points with her right hand to that spot on her ribcage again. “Just look, okay?”

     Ward looks. There’s a puckered, pink line running diagonally along her side, slicing from the underside of her breast around her back. There’s a circular patch of shiny skin on her shoulder, and a couple of dark purple dots surrounded by massive yellow bruises on her bicep.

     “What happened there?” he asks.

     Skye shrugs. “Needles or something. Jemma said… heparin? It stops your blood from clotting properly. Like mosquitoes!”

     Not like mosquitoes. Compared to the world of hurt Ward sees before him, mosquitoes seem like paragons of innocence. “Skye, you don’t need to show me this.”

     Something closes down behind her eyes. “What if I want to?”

     Ward struggles to backtrack, “I mean, of course, if you want to,” but it’s too late and Skye is turning away from him and reaching for her shirt. There are red lines criss-crossing her back. Ward reaches out and puts his hand on her spine. “ _Skye_ ,” he says firmly. “If you want to show me, then I want to see.” Her skin is smooth beneath his fingers. The scars aren’t raised, they’re just red.

     “Do you think I’m pretty _now_?” she asks. The bitterness in her voice doesn’t suit her.

     “Always,” Ward says firmly. It’s the absolute truth, and he knows it. “I think you’re beautiful. You _are_ beautiful.”

     “Flatterer,” Skye scoffs, but she turns back around to face him. “I think they took my clothes to humiliate me – and scare me. It worked.”

     “If I promise that I’ll never let anyone hurt you again,” Ward starts, “would that be too macho and arrogant of me?”

     “Little bit. But I understand the sentiment so… thanks.” She reaches out clumsily, and pats him on the chest. “I want to learn how to fight, Ward.”

     “You are learning how to fight.” _I’m teaching you,_ he thinks.

     “I mean fight like you, or May. I want to learn how to kill people.”

     Ward shakes his head, because that idea is so very, very wrong. “No. I don’t ever want you to kill people.”

     “Well why not? You’ve killed people.” She says it casually, as though it’s something that doesn’t matter to her. Ward wishes it didn’t matter to him.

     “Yeah, and I regretted it,” he tells her. “Even though I knew they were bad people, they still had… parents, and siblings, partners or children, maybe. You’re not a killer, Skye. You’re one of the most empathic people I’ve ever met and that’s amazing. That’s more important to SHIELD – and to me – than just being another agent who can snap necks and fire bullets.”

     Abruptly, out of nowhere, tears start coursing down Skye’s cheeks. She sniffles and wipes her nose with the back of her hand and then she curls her knees up to her chest and cries in earnest. In-between sobs, she says, “I’ve been so _angry_ with him, Ward. The one who hurt me. I never get angry, not like this! It feels wrong.”

     Well, yeah, Ward knows something about anger feeling wrong. It’s been lurking within him, somewhere beneath his ribcage, ever since the stupid Berserker staff incident and all the stupid fury that came with it. So he shuffles forward and he pulls Skye down and into his chest and she wraps her hand around his shoulder and buries her face in his neck and drips hot tears onto his skin.

     “Every day,” he tells her, “it will get easier.”

     It’s funny. You can go through your life and never miss something until you find it – and then it’s there (or Skye is here, clinging to him like he's a buoy and she's drowning) and you wonder how you ever lived without it. Who was he, before he met her? He’s already forgotten. She defines him now, her and the rest of the team, but mostly her. A smile curves across his face (it’s a tiny smile, not enough to tarnish his reputation, surely) and he runs his hand over Skye’s back. Oh. _Oh._ She’s _naked_ and pressed up against him, all warm flesh and soft skin and wow, now he’s really struggling to think about anything else.

     “Uh, Skye?”

     “Yeah,” she says, and he’s pleased to hear that she’s not crying anymore. Her voice has returned to normal. “Sorry. I didn’t know robots were programmed with that reaction.”

     Wait, what? Holy… Ward jerks his head up and stares down at his pants and – wait, he’s fine. There’s nothing going on down there (well, nothing he can _see_ , anyway).

     Skye pushes herself up and leans over him, grinning. Look at her _eyes_ , Ward reminds himself.

     “Sorry,” Skye giggles. “I couldn’t resist. You looked so horrified!”

     Ward lets his head fall back to rest on the pillow and closes his eyes. “Just put your shirt back on,” he groans. “This whole situation is getting dangerously close to illegal fraternisation.”

     “Fraternisation isn’t illegal in SHIELD,” Skye says smugly. “Not even between a rookie and an SO. I asked Coulson.”

     The sound of his bunk door sliding open and closed highlights the end of her sentence, and when Ward opens his eyes again, he’s alone. He still feels a little bit lost after the events of last night and this morning, so he tells himself he’ll think about it later and gets up. If he gets dressed now, he can be down in the cargo bay by 7 AM.

 

He straps his hand and starts a steady rhythm of jab-cross, jab-cross. Skye skips down the spiral staircase a few minutes later and throws him a sharp-toothed smile, and then she takes up her place opposite him and he holds the bag for her. Things settle back into their usual routine.

 

Wait, did she say that she’d asked Coulson about rookie-SO fraternisation? What? _Why?_ Frowning, he looks around the edge of the punching bag and catches Skye’s eye.

     She winks at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys, thanks for sticking with me through this! I've decided to make this the final chapter, because otherwise I don't know if this story would have ever ended! I feel like I've left it on an ambiguous note that works well for fanfiction-headcanon (is that even a thing?) so feel free to imagine what happens next to your own satisfaction. :D
> 
> To all those who read, commented and left kudos, thank you so SO much. For my first story on the AO3, this has been so much bigger and more exciting (for me) than I anticipated. Over 1,000 hits! So thank you.
> 
> Also, can I just take a moment to say how absolutely fricking awesome it is that there are only a few days left until the next episode of Agents of SHIELD? Bring on the rest of the season!! And I hope you all enjoy. I know I will. :D


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